Hello my chess friends. I have always thought that the best way to learn is to teach. That’s why in this post I try to explain what happened in this famous classic battle between William Steinitz (First World Champion in Chess History) and C...

Once while riding to the Dallas Chess Club I was talking to IM Daniel Fernandez, and I asked him who his favorite player was. He turned the question back on me, and I said Alexander Morozevich was my favorite player. Daniel scoffed and said that I...

After Round 8 we have a very curious situation in Wijk aan Zee - we have World Champions on both ends of the standings.
The last two World Champions are leading the field with 5.5/8. The one before them is dead-last with 2/8.
While ...

In the last round of the year opening tourney in Budapest I played with International Master Emil Szalanczy, a great tactician and endgame player.
I decided to play a line to prevent his attacking ideas and put the game i...

White came back to its usual form as it demolished Black to almost demolish the gap between them. In a drastic reversal of fortunes, White won 2-1 each on day 6 and 7 (counting only wins) and 4-0 (!) on day 8. It turned out that Black had just a m...

Hello, my dear chess friends!
Today will be a grand event. In just a few hours, the two strongest chess countries in the world will meet in a duel on the website.Team Ukraine and Team Russia are not the first time playing a match.
But for the ...

Immediately after becoming National U9 champion ( the Indian boy Rajveev Nahah finished 1/2 pt ahead but the title went to a Singaporean, of course), CM Goh Zi Han had to dash home to pack for his Auckland flight to compete in the George Tru...

In this USCF rated game from Parma Chess Club I find myself on Butch Kless's Butcher Block. How do I get myself in these situations? lol
This game was a London System that starts rather calm and next thing you know tactics are everywhere ...

Hello, my old and future chessfriends!
I have a huge lack of free time this week, because I am
administer the Jacob Yukhtman Memorial online tournament (and player!)getting ready to stream tomorrow's mega-match Ukraine vs Russia on chess...

This is a peculiar genre of Soviet journalism: feuilleton. Soviet state press used this form of sarcastic short stories to condemn some sort of "unbecoming" conduct. They were mostly based on reality, but with (obviously) changed names and so...

Hello everyone. People already know how important it is to learn and play well in the endgame. However, sometimes we feel overwhelmed with so many things to learn and so much information to watch. That’s why I wrote this post about some impo...

Two months ago @simaginfan published a wonderful article about Ian Wells. When I started to read, I had a sense of déjà vu. A young British player who beats Grandmaster Alexander Kotov in a tournament and tragically dies a few m...

I already have a long blog on chess traps. (Click here to see it - and you should really check it out! It is full of links ... and I won't reproduce all that info {again} in this blog.) My first blog on chess traps has generated many e-mails, PM's...

Greetings chess.com!
The last prime prize number that was held was a massive success. Because of that, I've decided to hold ANOTHER one this Sunday! So if you are interested in winning FREE Diamond Memberships, make sure to read the rest of...

This article will you give some advice on how to excel in blitz. Blitz specialist GM Maxim Dlugy published an article series in New In Chess called Magazine the Blitz Whisperer and my recommendations are based on his articles, an analysis of...

In this edition of Staff Profiles we check in with Kayt from the support team who will be celebrating a birthday on Sunday!
What is your name?
My name is Kisha. My friends call me Kayt.
Where do you live?
I'm an American ...

In the 1970s, a young talented girl named Lyubov Scherbina emerged in the Crimean region. She qualified to the 1972 Soviet women's championship, where performed poorly (7/19, 18th place out of 20), but soon her career was on the rise: in 1975, she...

There are two openings you must master if you want to be a World Champion: The Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit. If you look at the great World Champions, all of them could play these openings extremly well from either side!
In round 5 of the Ta...

Wijk Aan Zee is not just a tournament. It is a festival, a chess bonanza of sorts. Different categories, different strengths, make it the perfect way to start any year. It's long tradition saw it's names changing from Hoogovens to Corus to Tata St...

Hello everyone. I wrote once some tips to beat stronger opponents. In this post I bring a game where I faced a higher rated player, and things were good for me. I wrote some comments and tried to explain some lines.
In some way I just got ...

Here are two fun games from the Australian Junior Chess Championships, where Harry the H-Pawn gets involved in some thematic London System attacks.
Two rounds later...
And you thought the London System was just a quiet way to ...

A cheery 'Good Morning' to those of you joining me for some more of the innumerable chess games that I have floating around my head.
I have taken time off from annotating games for the second part of the Charousek article to add one of Morphy's ...

This was a game which I played in the year opening tourney in Budapest.
My opponent was an old gentleman, an International Master Jevgenyij Boguszlavszkij.
In our last game he palyed the Bogo-indian defense and safed the end...

Looking for inspiration, to see if I play in the Icelandic Chess Club Championship at the end of February, I find myself looking at Gufeld's games....
And then I found this jewel!
I know, I know, beauty is a subjective thing....but when I went...